My Top Ten Tips I m actually averse to making lists like Five Easy Steps to as if life can be stripped of all depth and nuance! But I agree that sometimes it can be handy on occasions like this to have to discipline ones- self to distil aspects of one s experience into one- liners. I asked members of my team to each give me their one top tip. I have quoted them word for word. Accept that you can t solve everyone s problem listen supportively but leave it there. When our Administrative Officer was appointed to manage the Oasis centre I made sure that the role of administration was equally complemented by a capacity to welcome everyone who came into the centre. As a result we found that there are some students waiting for the centre to open at 8 in the morning just to have a coffee and chat with her. She has become like a surrogate Mum to many students, a listening ear who is consistently available and is therefore able to journey with staff and students as they work through their issues. When someone is talking to me and it sparks my thinking or raises my emotions, it means I need to work on me to sort out my issues. This team member has been undertaking some professional development in non- violent communication and has become aware of the importance of what they are calling emergency self- empathy a self- listening awareness that accompanies the listening process when in conversation with the other. It means taking note of one s own cognitive and emotional responses simultaneously with processing what one is being told verbally and non- verbally; taking note of one s own reactions, and accepting them as internal messages, indicating the work to be done away from the conversation on one s own development. Make time to recharge your own batteries take time out just to be, think or engage in a religious practice: You can t pour anything out of an empty cup! This tip from one of our longest serving members of the team. Over the years she has not been immune from difficult times personally, but she has practiced what she preaches in this tip and makes a consistent joyful contribution to the Oasis project. Don t try to be all things to all people; be intentional about what I need to grow and work at saying no gently, but firmly. This tip also from the above person probably a good tip for anyone in retirement.
The following are things I have found helpful over the years: Find mentors with whom you can share a two- way relationship to support key strengths of your ministry and help grow the weaker parts. I came to chaplaincy from secondary school teaching. When I was contracted by the Uniting Church in 1997, I was well aware that I needed help in a number of areas. So, for example: Firstly, I chose a spiritual director - though he had first chosen me as his mentor to help with developing a radically different approach to worship in the mid- 90 s. As a minister of many years and an older man, he coached me in conducting public events such as funerals, marriages and memorial services. He is brilliant at adaptive liturgy and a university chaplain has to be particularly adaptive! He is a very creative thinker and an experienced pastoral counselor. We continue after all these years to have coffee once a week. I also sought out Prof. Norman Habel, an international biblical scholar, to act as my theological mentor. He has been like a Godfather to me and the Oasis project. We meet at the drop of a hat, probably every month or so. The insights he gives me, straight from the Hebrew or Greek text, are mind- blowing! My friend Alan Larkin was Director of the Flinders Institute of International Education when I first met him, as I was doing my rounds as a chaplain. I invited him to one of my support group breakfasts to talk about life as an academic. He enjoyed it so much he joined the group! He is, what I would call, a natural chaplain. He has a gift of spiritual discernment. He can walk into a crowded room and tell where people are at spiritually. He was carpeted by his superior at Flinders and told he was paid to teach, not to care! As a result, I chaplained him through a difficult resignation process and extended recovery. His specialty is strategic management and planning - as well as caring! So his contribution to the Oasis project has been fundamental and we have begun to work as a duo when we consult with universities I talk about religious issues and he talks about the university context. We meet at least weekly. The Uniting Church encouraged me to form a support group, which I did. It was a good place to debrief, reflect and get external feedback; they liaised with the UCA hierarchy. We would meet for an extended breakfast every five or six weeks. But I could see that I needed a mentor who knew the Regulations inside out, particularly when it began to be obvious that I was upsetting some of the more conservative branches of the church. So I sought out a member of my congregation who had been a UCA General- Secretary in SA and WA she had also been high up in education circles, having two PhD s one in education and one in theology! We meet monthly. See yourself as part of a learning community. If the context is one of learning, threats to beliefs and values are diminished. An ethos of learning together normalises an openness to learn from each other,
rather than maintaining a protective ethos that promotes a climate of reaction, defense and conflict. An ethos of each being part of a learning community gives permission to try new things and to see that making and learning from mistakes is critical to the learning process. Think both/and. You need your adversary to teach you as well as your friend. Having been raised as an evangelical to think them and us, either or, I m right and you re wrong, I continue to struggle with this one! I am not insinuating that one should not stand for what one believes and values, but more often than not, I find that some dilemmas are insoluble either way and one just has to accept them as they are and live with it. It is what it is! Collapsing paradox into one pole or another is a great temptation for someone like me! But as one gets older, one gets greater perspective, and it seems easier to identify what really matters and what to let go of. Employ Newton but also Einstein. Isaac Newton gave us the Laws of Motion, benefitting the Industrial Age. For example, he proposed that action and reaction are equal and opposite if you push on something, the something pushes back equally on you. Appreciating these laws is important in our everyday life, in road safety, for example. Newton described moving objects, but Einstein said it all depends. Flying into Canberra yesterday morning, my plane was parked at the gate, ready to open its doors. But out of the window I noticed out of the corner of my eye a plane that had been stationary and now we appeared to be moving again. My brain told me the outside plane was still stationary and that my plane had started moving forward - and I shouldn t have released my seat belt! But in fact, the outside plane had begun to reverse out and I was the one that was stationary! It s an odd feeling! Einstein went beyond Newton with his theory of relativity, but for us mere mortals, Newton s descriptions are good enough for everyday life. But Einstein developed a whole new way of describing things. We now have a both/and situation Newton for everyday, macro life and Einstein mostly beyond the everyday, particularly at the extremes sub- atomic particles and cosmology. At the sub- atomic level we have uncertainty for example, if you know the position of an electron you cannot know its speed, and if you know its speed, you can t know its position. Light is both particles as well as being a wave motion. These are important considerations, not just for science, but for epistemology that branch of philosophy concerned for what we can know. We used to think of our faith in Newtonian terms ask and you will receive, be good and you ll go to heaven action and reaction, good and bad etc. But Einstein has opened the way to think of God in less concrete ways faith is no longer certainty.
Choose your story. I remember a conversation with a theologian whose Masters thesis was about the texts Jesus used during his ministry. Clearly, there are texts Jesus didn t employ. And if we are honest, the same is probably true for most of us today. That doesn t mean that we don t examine all texts. But clearly we are not in the habit of stoning people these days! For me this means relativising biblical texts. I need to choose the story that will guide me among other options. There is no door closed to you. When I began chaplaincy I was assigned an experienced chaplain as a mentor. He was a hospital chaplain. I remember him encouraging me to be bold if I see an animated meeting going on I will walk in and join it. You are the chaplain, you have a contribution to make, and no door is closed to you! Some time later students were having a protest about fees and had locked themselves into the University Council meeting room. When I heard, I went down to the Registry and walked up to the security guard preventing anyone going in or out of the room. I politely introduced myself as the chaplain, he hesitated for a moment and then opened the door! Another time, I was informed about a suicide of a staff member. I took a deep breath and went up to the school, knocked on the door of the only staff member I knew and asked him to introduce me to the Head of School and affected staff. No- one was religious, I was told. But this began a long process of support and deepening relationships with the head of school and the staff affected by the suicide. It eventually resulted in a change of work culture in the school. This tip is about taking the initiative overcoming our fears and getting on with our vocation regardless of the barriers of our own self- doubt and possible ignorance or prejudice of others. Find the chaplain already there. The extra time involved in following up on the fallout from the suicide prompted me to have a discussion with my spiritual director. How can one be chaplain to a university with a staff of over three thousand? Any focus on one section of the university inevitably means other sections are left unattended? The outcome of our conversation was that I should find the chaplain already there and encourage them. I could immediately recognize one such person in the grieving school. So I went to her for a chat. Yes, it was her who had since arranged biscuits for morning tea each week; and she told me that she didn t know why, but people seemed to come to her to talk about their troubles. I encouraged her to see how important her gift was to the wellbeing of the school. More recently I have generalized the idea, and try to encourage any act of pastoral care whenever or wherever I come across it. And I consider myself surrounded by an army of pastoral carers, many of whom I may never know! Employ the concepts of myth, liturgy and ritual.
Harrison Owen was an episcopal priest who became a management consultant in the US in the 70 s and based his management practice on the theory that institutions have spirit. As a former teacher, I knew all about school spirit. A change in school principal could quickly change how a school felt about itself. School spirit was often extolled at student assemblies. Owen reckoned that all organisations have a myth a unifying story that has established the organisation s identity, often based on stories about the founder of the company or its early life; liturgy - about the way things are done in the company; and ritual those procedures that give rhythm to the life of the organization in support of its myth. So what is the unifying myth of your organization? What rituals support that myth? Space must be engineered. This was a line in a recent advertisement for an ABC Radio National program. For me it means that hospitality as the creation of space for the other doesn t just happen. It has to be strategically created, and worked at. Employ hospitality in every sphere. I think Nouwen s formulation of hospitality is the key to pastoral care, particularly when it comes to including other faiths and cultures. It is a concept and a word few can object with it is inclusive; and it brings transformation to the giver and receiver without sectarian argument. Intellectual hospitality making space for the other s thoughts; social hospitality making space for groups to have their own lives; physical hospitality architecture that creates space for people to feel comfortable in your setting; emotional hospitality making space for deep feelings to be self- identified and expressed; spiritual hospitality making room for the spirit to flourish. I realize I have given more than ten tips, but as the Revlon ad says, You Deserve It!